Monday, June 11, 2018

Quick Hits: Super Sons/Dynomutt and Supergirl Being Super

I'm a bit behind in reviews so forgive the late nature of these quick hits.

Earlier this month, DC did another round of crossovers between their characters and classic cartoon properties. You might remember the DC/WB crossovers like Bugs Bunny/Legion of Super-Heroes from last year. This year, the company has mash-ups with classic Hanna-Barbera characters. That is a deeper and wider group of shows to pull from which led to some interesting concepts.

As someone who loved the Super Sons concept and book and was still smarting a bit from the cancellation, I knew I was going to get the Super Sons/Dynomutt issue, written by usual Sons scribe Peter Tomasi with art by Fernando Pasarin.

I was expecting a goofy sort of romp with Blue Falcon and Robin playing straight men to the more rambunctious Dynomutt and Jon.

That is not what I got ... at all ...

Instead what I got was a pretty dark adventure. Dynomutt has been beaten to a pulp and near dead. Blue Falcon has had his body corrupted by mind control technology and is acting the villain. Death is all over this book from Jon heading to his first funeral early on to the death (and ultimate resurrection) of one of the people inside. It is a bloody mess.

I might sometimes rage against such a book saying that this was a 'grim and gritty' DC error like so many before. But the fact is it was handled in such a serious way, not glorifying its matter, not emphasizing the brutality, that I was pretty absorbed. And I think the jarring experience of expecting a silly book and getting something much deeper just drew me in more. Who knew you could do a serious Dynomutt book?

Kudos to Tomasi.

I also bought the Supergirl Being Super trade paperback.

Now I have to admit I wasn't particularly floored by this mini when it came out. The Joelle Jones art was magnificent. But it seemed a little too precious for me. It ended in a way that a sequel seems possible and I wonder if, with the concept nailed down, that the next story is better.

One thing I do love is when trades give more than just reprints of the issues.

There are a handful of concept art pages in the back.

Included are concept art by Kevin Wada for that Kara's uniform. Squint and you might see color combos and flair from her upcoming space duds. There are some of these I like quite a bit.

We also got character sheets by Jones where she nails down the body habitus of the three main characters, Kara and her friends. As a long time reader, I like seeing these 'behind the scenes' production pieces. I suppose this was Jones' way of making sure she stayed on model.

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

" Who knew you could do a serious Dynomutt book?"

Who knew, indeed.

Those character sheets and designs are very interesting. I'd not mind seeing Kara wearing one of them.

The thing is, the classic suit is classic for one reason, and Supergirl sooner or later returns to it because it's iconic, regardless how many online professional whiners who don't even read the comics complain about the skirt.

And now I'll go off topic but I'd like commenting some things:

- I've just read the 1995 Superman/Aliens crossover written by Dan Jurgens featuring a blonde, blue-eyed, sixteen-year-old alien girl called Kara who wasn't from Krypton, born in a non-Kryptonian floating Argo City whom Superman was treating as his surrogate little sister five minutes after meeting her. Even though Superman swore he'd never forget her and kept a picture he never mentioned her again, not even bringing her up when his cousin made it to Earth. Have you thought of covering that mini or making a post about that other Kara?

- Cartoon Network has -at last- aired the last episodes of JL Action. "Unleashed" featured Streaky's debut. What did you think about it?

In another order of things, I've realized several early issues of the 2005 book in the DC Wikia are filled with false and outdated information. It must be corrected, but in order to do so I'll have to -shudders- read again Candor and what came after. The things I put myself through for the character... well, regardless that, after going over the sixth issue, I've got to say Sterling Gates "Kryptonite-induced craziness" retcon fits perfectly. Even Power Girl noted Kara was behaving strangely and her fuse was shorter than usual.

Only very recently I had a vague memory of that Not Our Kara story and managed to track that memory down to the Superman vs. Aliens DC/Dark Horse crossover. Agreed, it is a good story with an interesting twist.

Mariko Tamaki appeared last week at a local bookstore presentation space, in conversation with Gene Luen Yang - I guess to promote the release of the Being Super TPB. I don't know if she, or they, are going on a tour.

She heaped praise on Joelle Jones.

The front of the bookstore was filled with rows of Yang's collections and some of Tamaki's too.

Mariko was kind enough to autograph my copies of all 4 issues of Being Super. I'll have to check out the back of the TPB to see all the extras.

"Even though Superman swore he'd never forget her and kept a picture he never mentioned her again, not even bringing her up when his cousin made it to Earth."

This reminds me of something I've thought about occasionally. It's kind of trivial, but here goes. When cousin Supergirl turned up in Action Comics 252, how come Superman didn't immediately think that Jimmy Olsen had somehow found a way to get that Magic Totem working again? Or that "Super-Girl" on her own was able to get back from that limbo she had vanished into? You would think the idea would have flashed through his mind, if only for a split second.

Oh, I know...stories were more or less stand-alone in those days, and past events (even recent ones) referenced only when necessary, but it would have been interesting. I wonder if they ever considered bringing back the Totem Super-Girl to have her meet Kara.

And while it's acknowledged that the story in Superman 123 was something of a test to gauge whether readers would welcome a Supergirl character, the story itself seems to be saying that having a Supergirl around would be a super-headache for Clark and cause him nothing but misery.

"This reminds me of something I've thought about occasionally. It's kind of trivial, but here goes. When cousin Supergirl turned up in Action Comics 252, how come Superman didn't immediately think that Jimmy Olsen had somehow found a way to get that Magic Totem working again?"

Supposedly it was declared that story never happened rather instead of being an imaginary story.

Ironically, it fits the pattern: every Supergirl has been forgotten and/or retconned out: Lucy of Borgonia? Forgotten. Super-Girl? Never happened. Kara Zor-El? Killed off, retconned out of existence and forgotten. Matrix? Put on a bus and forgotten. Laurel Gand? Retconned out of existence. Kara of planet Odiline? Forgotten. Linda Danvers? Put on a bus, forgotten and retconned out. Post-Crisis Kara? Retconned out.

We'll see what happens to current mainstream Kara.

"the story itself seems to be saying that having a Supergirl around would be a super-headache for Clark and cause him nothing but misery."

True. How ironic given WB/DC's stance since the 80's.

"Still, I would have loved to see more of the Newt-like Kara."

Maybe Supergirl's incoming direction would be a good opportunity to review it: "Hey, guys, did you know in the middle 90's Superman underwent a space mission with a completely different Kara?"

Anyway... in the middle 90's, Superman's writers introduced a dog named Krypto... who wasn't Kryptonian... a city in a bottle named Kandor... which wasn't Kryptonian but an alien ghetto... a blonde, blue-eyed alien girl named Kara, born in a city named Argo City... and neither she was Kara Zor-El nor Argo was a Kryptonian city.

Around that time DC should have thought hard about what they were doing and told: "You know what? This is getting silly and ridiculous. Let's drop that "sole survivor" ten-year-old policy because it's run its course and is holding back the franchise at this point".